Dad Overdoses, Crashes With 6-Year-Old Daughter In Car

BOSTON (CBS) – A young girl picks up a cellphone and calls her mom from the passenger seat after watching her father pass out behind the wheel and crash into another vehicle.

Prosecutors said 35-year-old Ryan Campbell told Worcester Police he had taken heroin 25 minutes before the crash on Harding St. Friday. He was arraigned on a list of charges, including OUI and child endangerment.

“There was a 6-year-old child that was in the vehicle. When police did arrive, the child was on the cellphone with the mother, and the mother was coming to pick the child up,” said Assistant District Attorney Roberta O’Brien.

When police arrived, firefighters were already on the scene, and had revived the father with Narcan. Police said there were empty cans in the car, he was slurring, and smelled of alcohol.

Campbell’s former fiancée, who is not the girl’s mother, said she was shocked. “I was mortified that he would put his daughter in that position,” she said. “She’s a beautiful little girl, and she didn’t deserve that.”

Deputy Fire Chief John Sullivan said his department alone handled an average of three opioid cases a day last month. “It would be an unusual day to go by where we didn’t have a case dealing with opioids in the City of Worcester,” he said.